postcard from Putin

Navalny in Tomsk on 8-19, 8-20

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/08/28/alexei-navalny-poisoning-video-timeline/?arc404=true

https://news.sky.com/story/alexei-navalny-poisoning-putin-critic-can-talk-again-as-police-protection-stepped-up-12067856

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9-12-20  “Navalny’s poisoning does not look like a Chechen attack; it has the handwriting of secret services,” she said.  “Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is extremely dangerous, has the Kremlin’s license for persecutions, for murder both inside Russia and in other countries, including Africa and Syria.”  Lyubov Sobol does not have any hard evidence to link Prigozhin, Kremlin-linked catering magnate, known as “Putin’s chef.” to the attack on Navalny.  https://www.thedailybeast.com/lyubov-sobol-navalnys-no-2-suspects-putins-chef-prigozhin-ordered-novichok-hit-on-alexei-navalny

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2-10-20  

  Seven left-wing campaigners have been found guilty of terrorism charges by a Russian court, in what critics have condemned as an attempt to silence opposition.

The men, aged between 23 and 31, were sentenced to jail terms between 6 and 18 years on Monday.

  They were accused of plotting attacks for an anarchist group known at Set, meaning Network, against the 2018 football World Cup, which was held in Russia, and the presidential election.  The men, who all denied the accusations, stood trial in the city of Penza, almost 400 miles southeast of Moscow.  Dozens of their supporters chanted “shame” when their sentences were handed down in the military court.

  Natalia Prilutskaya, Amnesty International Russia’s researcher, said the terror charges were designed to silence the men, describing them as “a figment of the Russian security services’ imagination.”  Ms Prilutskaya added: “The trial has been a sham – the men say their confessions were extracted by torture and the so-called evidence is contradicted by the facts.”

  Elsewhere, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny called the sentences “horrific” and organisation “ fictitious” in a tweet.  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/url-russia-activists-jail-anarchists-anti-fascists-kremlin-soccer-world-cup-putin-a9327846.html